Difference between SAP ALE(Application Link Enabling) and SAP EDI(Electronic data interchange.)

SAP stands for Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing, a German software program company whose items permit businesses to track clients and business intelligence. SAP, by definition, is additionally the title of the ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software as well as the title of the company. 

SAP ALE(Application Link Enabling) Vs SAP EDI(Electronic data interchange.)

What is SAP ALE?

SAP ALE stands for Application Link Enabling is a technology that is used to swap business data between various SAP system or between SAP and non-SAP systems. It acts as an integration technology that enables the different types of applications and system operations within an organization to facilitate the business processing and flow of information. In simple terms, SAP ALE describes the message flow between logical systems.

What is EDI in SAP?

SAP EDI stands for Electronic data interchange. SAP EDI is an one of the best electronic technology which is mainly used for business transactions of data or any other things within different applications of a system with a secure connection. It is considered as an one of the best industry recognized standard method which represents documents in electronic form. It is highly functionable only if multiple corporations are associated with a single parent company. In order to make the entire process automated SAP aids EDI operations through IDocs (Integrated Documents). The fundamental principle of EDI is to convert the data from one format to another format. In SAP we can able to transmit documents by utilizing EDI between SAP systems and other explicit systems. Here explicit system will be any vendor or an stakeholder.

Difference between SAP ALE and SAP EDI

SAP ALE(Application Link Enabling)	SAP EDI(Electronic Data Interchange)
Communication within SAP systems or between SAP systems.	Exchange of Business documents between different business partners.
Uses IDocs (Intermediate Documents)	Commonly uses standard formats such as ANSI X12, EDIFACT, or XML
Often real-time integration within SAP landscape	Batch processing for the exchange of business documents
Typically uses Remote Function Call (RFC)	Utilizes various communication methods (AS2, VANs, FTP) depending on trading partner agreements
Master data and transactional data within SAP	Structured business documents (e.g., orders, invoices) between diverse systems